new columnists: Pris & Eve

We like Bali

It feels like just yesterday. We were at the office. Just had a crying fit over a stressful production, barely slept for a week, warming ourselves up with a coffee and a cheese sandwich with grandma's fresh sambal. We looked at each other and said: ‘What the heck, let's go!’

Now, 8 years later, we look back on this moment and can say with certainty; this was probably the best and most important decision we ever made in our lives. We were 24, pretty much overworked and super eager to discover more of our Indonesian and Moluccan roots on the other side of the world, under the coconut trees. Destination dreamlife: Bali.

Before we continue: let us first introduce ourselves. We are Priscilla Rosmolen and Evelien Riupassa, now shortened slash internationalized to Pris & Eve. And together we run We like Bali, a travel & island style blog, publish our own Bali Travel Guides and since this summer have our own webshop. All of that because of that one choice in 2009 to move to Bali for ‘one year’. A spontaneous adventure that ultimately formed the beginning of our dream career, a new home (and we also found the loves of our lives, but more on that later).

After a super fun afternoon brainstorming with May-Britt and Daniëlle at the Pulitzer Hotel in Amsterdam, the idea emerged. It somehow seems to be a mystery how we do it all, those few times a year traveling back and forth to Bali, running a business there and also being able to work wherever we are, whether in a café, dream pool villa or anywhere else in the world. SO we are going to take you along every Thursday here on Amayzine.com in our Bali daily island life (including of course our favorite spots and new places we are going to discover for We like Bali) and everything that happens behind the scenes as influencers, bloggers and our webshop production in Bali. Because where most people think we earn our money just by frolicking in our bikinis over the most beautiful beaches and taking some photos of it (OMG, we wish), there is a lot involved in running an online business (in the tropics).

‘Time flies when you’re flying a lot.‘

Next week we are flying back to Bali. We have been in Europe for the past two months (made fun trips, like to Paris, Sardinia and as we speak in Nice) and in Amsterdam we had many good meetings (the Hoxton as a second home, hihi) with fellow bloggers and agencies for future collaborations. And above all, we worked hard to find our little office in Amsterdam for our webshop, where our lovely intern Dieuwertje watches over our shop when we are not in the Netherlands. We are very happy with our shared space on the Prinsengracht, where we ended up through our friend Guen. Temporarily though, so the search continues. Last weekend we celebrated a nice milestone in Amsterdam, namely our one-year anniversary of our Bali Travel Guide. Time flies when you’re flying a lot.

Whether we are actually flying next week is still not entirely certain. It is very exciting at the moment in Bali, as Mount Agung, the largest volcano in Bali, is about to erupt. Annoying for all vacationers, but of course much worse for all the residents of the small, largely poor, villages around the volcano who have had to leave their homes and ‘kampungs’. So we are very curious how this will develop. If the volcano remains calm, we will definitely just get on the plane next week.

In our next column, we will tell you more about how we started with We like Bali and what our daily life on the island actually looks like. If you have been there once, you can probably imagine it. We are really looking forward to going back to our island home. Enjoying food (ordering) all day at the best cafés (we are already thinking about where we will eat first again, probably our favorite vegan café Peloton Supershop in Berawa), seeing our family and friends there again (we miss you) and yes, working a lot on our dream business!

We are very excited about our Amayzine x We like Bali collaboration, hopefully you are too!

Tropically yours,

-x- Pris & Eve